The Darkness is Here
by AudreytheAwkward
Summary: (Used to be Tax Form) Even if I figure out how to kill this thing, how to rid it of its existence, I don't know what will happen. If I can snuff out the evil, will it take Dean with it? The silence shatters with his wild screams, and I'm on my feet and out of the bathroom before his lifeless eyes catch mine again. CARING!SAM HURT!DEAN Spoilers for season 9! Beta:ackeberlynn
1. Because We're Team Free Will

Nineteen sources down, seven to go. And still no successful results.

I sigh heavily and plop yet another oversized book onto the bed at my side. In my gut, I'm pretty sure that this will all turn up empty. Completely.

It's not completely surprising, I mean, it's not everyday that you hear about a wendigo-werewolf crossover. I guess I'm mostly just surprised that something we've never heard of has turned up this late in the game.

Dean and I talked about it last night. How to kill it. Logic would suggest that since we know how to kill each of the individual breeds, we would use some sort of combined method to exterminate the cross species.

Weredigo?

Wenwolf?

...W2.

I'll run that by Dean when he gets out of the shower. See if I can make him laugh. Or roll his eyes...anything.

Dean is ramping up the volume of his ACDC performance from the bathroom. I try to tell myself that he's not singing to intentionally annoy me, even though that might be true. But he sings in the shower all the time, and this place is not soundproof.

At all.

I don't think I should be able to hear him four doors down the hall, but the sound is so clear it's like he's in the room with me.

Maybe the Men of Letters had a paranoid thing about not being able to hear if there were intruders. That seems ridiculous. This place is so well fortified...but then again, I guess Dean and I are pretty much that bad. We jump at shadows. Not because we're scared, but because we know what's out there...well, you know.

I seriously can't concentrate. The words on the page of this book are dancing around to Dean's singing. I keep telling them to hold still, but that doesn't do any good.

I turn on my white noise app, cram in my earbuds, and let the sound of Dean wash out as the crash of the ocean washes in. Much better, now I can concentrate. It's better to wait Dean out anyway. I don't feel like exhausting myself with fighting with him this early in the day. Hopefully he'll be out soon, anyway. It's a fight I'd rather not pick.

_The wendigo creature is best defeated with fire…._the book in my hands tells me.

Yeah, I know that. Then somehow I end up reading words that I'm pretty sure aren't even on the page.

_What do you mean, you wouldn't do the same for me? Because I thought we had an unbreakable bond, man._

I try to shake Dean's words out of my head, but I can't. I never will. Because I betrayed him. I even still stand by what I said. I hate it, but I think it's true.

Still, there's no way to, essentially, say "I wouldn't save your life" without sounding like a backstabbing coward.

Is that really what I've become?

Again?

Dean. There's that. It's like his humanity is dying or something. I speak from experience. Dean is starting to look like my reflection did when my soul was in the cage. Maybe not what it looks like. I don't think you really notice it then...that you're changing. When you're losing your humanity? It's kind of like you don't care, or you don't notice, or you don't know what you're actually supposed to look like.

And I see that. It's happening to Dean. This whole deal with the mark of Cain, and the First Blade, it's very….animalistic. He used to have a moral compass...to some extent. Maybe not so much a moral compass as a compass of his own. He knew where he was going, he knew what he believed in. And he still does, maybe. It's just less human.

So maybe, in some twisted way, our fights are kind of like me attempting to rescue him. To remind him that he isn't immortal, and that he can't just bounce back from death on any given Tuesday.

Then again, maybe it's not.

Maybe it is purely selfish. Maybe it's giving up.

He's my brother.

But he's losing his humanity.

I get stopped dead in my tracks, because that's rich coming from me. And I know it.

But where does this all end? When do we just let this be over? When do we get a break, an end?

Relief?

I think I see it clearly now. We're saving each other, but destroying ourselves at the same time. The sacrifices we make feel like they're cancelling each other out, Like they're no good. They're harmful.

I guess we will have to accept our fate.

But we can't. We've never been like that. We're Team Free Will, for crying out loud.

The truth is sinking in, no matter how much my mind rebels against it.

Even "Team Free Will" doesn't escape clean out at the end. Not really. I don't think that will happen. I don't think we'll live forever, and I don't know that I want to. I don't know about Dean. Maybe he does, now. Or maybe he just wants to die.

Maybe he doesn't even know what he wants.

It feels like a plan to give up, or to betray everything we've ever stood for.

But it's not like we'll just be sitting around like helpless babies waiting for death to take over. We'll go down fighting in the end, I know that much.

It still feels like betrayal. But maybe it's the right kind of betrayal. I don't know if that's an actual thing, but if it was, this would be it. The kind of betrayal that, after a long, bad period, makes everything right in the end. Right in the way Winchesters have never been before.

Maybe it will bring peace.

Freedom.

Ironic. Team Free Will could finally, really, be free.

I rip out my headphones. I can't take any more of this kind of morbid thinking right now. If I can just focus on the case, this W2 thing, maybe everything between Dean and me will hurt a little less. Not that I would hurt less; I think I've accepted what's going on enough that my pain and regret just kind of feels like a dull ache.

Dean would hurt less if we focused on this case.

I get up and go down the hall. The singing and the running water has stopped, which is a relief. I rap on the bathroom door, my other hand balancing a heavy leather journal that belonged to some crazy Dominican hunter in the 1900s. This guy's claim to fame was his extensive knowledge of wendigos, and his name was Juan Diego. I honestly doubt that that was his real name, but Dean should get a kick out of it.

There's no answer, so I pound on the door again.  
"Dean, hurry up. I think I found something on the wendigo werewolf case." I tell the door.

The door handle is locked when I jiggle it, so I go across the hall to Dean's room, just to check. He's not there.

Great. So now he's completely ignoring me. That's just great.

My feet freeze for a second on the carpet, a raging debate flashing through my mind. Should I let it go? Or should I go confront my brother?

My feet start moving on their own, and I find myself in front of the bathroom door again. So I let my hand reach up and knock.

"Dean?"

My name is moaned...but it's not in Dean's voice.

Dean's voice is boisterous. Sarcastic. Demanding.

This voice is small. Scared. Pleading.

"Dean! What's wrong?"  
No answer.

"Okay. I'm coming in….get out of the way."

I wait a few seconds, then back up and kick the door in.


	2. Soup Pot Under the Sink

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I burst into the bathroom in a spray of panic and splinters.

The crimson heat of the shower has leaked away, leaving thick drops of cooled water in their wake. The wetness clings to everything...the huge drops slide apathetically from the ceiling to the wall to the floor. Some of them have collected in a leaden slumber in the depression between the shower and the floor drain.

In the midst of the condensation, Dean's body drapes across the ledge of the bathtub, his head in his hands.

"Dean!"

He's completely unresponsive.

"Dean." I grab his shoulders, trying to get him to acknowledge me.

The dampness of the bathroom floor seeps through the knees of my jeans as I take Dean's full weight in my arms and roll him gently onto the floor, lying him on his back with his head in my lap.

"Dean!"

There's no blood, no wounds that I can see. I try to pry his hands away from his temple, but he clenches up, almost sobbing in pain. I bite my lip, forcing myself to back away emotionally. Forcing myself to save him.

I get his fingers away from his face, whispering soothingly to him. He fights, but he's not aware enough to be very effective.

No wounds. No bruising. Nothing.

"Dean."

He finally gives me a response, moaning wetly. It's all I need.

"Dean, hang in there."

I grab his arms to roll him over. That's when I feel it. The heat in his right arm.

"Dean…." I gasp.

I know how hot infected wounds can get, but those seem like a pleasant warmth in comparison to this. I jerk my hand away, my freshly burnt fingertips blush and throb.

Ice stabs into my throat, and is instantly boiled away by hot panic, hot as my brother's arm. How can it be that hot? How? Hot enough to burn me like a cigarette lighter, or a stove. I wrestle against his stiff arms and pull his sleeve up, grasping it against his shoulder with one hand and run my hand across the mark with the other.

It's spread….at least the color has. Six inches in every direction on his skin around the mark is just as red as the mark itself. At the edges, the red trails in thin tendrils, like spiders legs. Some of them reach down all the way to his wrist.

Dean's chest is heaving up and down as he fights through the pain. I wish he was cohesive enough to tell me what's hurting him. I mean, his head, obviously. I'm sure his arm, too. If nothing else, it's burning him. But what can I do?

"Sammy." he croaks between gasps. "Help...me."

"What can I do? What can I do?" I plead, but the moment of clarity is gone.

I slide out from under him, stumbling to my feet and gently laying his head on the floor.

The pressure, the weight of his head on my leg cut off my circulation, and I stumble, my foot finally spiking feeling through my calf again, up to my knee. Like electricity.

Slip. How long? Did I sit there for ten minutes? Half an hour? An hour?

There's a big, rusted kind of soup pot in the kitchen. It barely fits under the sink...the white paint's all scraped off because the pot's so big. It kind of doesn't fit, you have to wedge it under the sink. So when you put it in, and when you pull it out, the paint scrapes off. Sometimes some of it gets into the pot, sticks to the bottom. But I'm not worried about that right now. I wrench the pot out and set it in the sink, then go to the freezer. There's not enough ice. I know there's not. But we have to start somewhere.

The ice feels good on my burned fingertips, but it kind of sticks. I have to peel some of it off.

When the pot is full, I lift it out of the sink and lug it back to the bathroom.

I almost drop the pot. Dean is crying.

There's this feeling when you're out of shape and you run. Like, you haven't run in forever and then suddenly, you run again. I felt it after Dean and I were together again. After Amelia.

And I ran, and my lungs felt like they had shrunk. Like they were made out of something so thick….like leather….that it wouldn't stretch to allow air in. It hurts and feels rubbery, and the pain spreads to the back of your neck and the front of your head, and you can't breathe.

I feel it again. Because he's crying. His knees curled up to his chest, his right arm cradled in between his thighs and his chest. His other arm covers his face, his hand is wrapped around his head again.

I step over him, feeling the heat radiating off of him. I set the pot down in the bathtub, and my fingers glide and skate, ice skate, across the slick floor of the tub until they find the drain stopper. And I shove it down, closing off the drain. I dump the ice in, and it scatters across the white porcelain. The cold water from the tap hits the ice and makes crackling noises, popping in the back of my head as I start pulling off Dean's shirts. He's slick, like the bathtub floor, but it's not cold like the bathtub.

I think he might be aware that I'm trying to help him. He kind of braces himself and pulls himself along until we've got him most of the way into the tub, his feet kind of out over the side, but his torso and definitely his arm are in the ice water.

I grab his arm again, turning it over so I can see the mark, shimmering beneath the surface of the water. Tiny, white blisters completely surround the mark, and there are a few bigger ones closer to his elbow. So hot it burned and blistered him.

I scoop some of the ice out of the water and wrap it in a hand towel and press it directly against the mark, trying to ignore Dean's screaming.

He's screaming, now.

I pull him further down into the water, so that the cold liquid comes up around his ears. Maybe it will help his head.

I should talk to him. Get him to respond. But he won't even respond to his own name right now. How can I get him to respond?


	3. Erode

The wall of the shower should have two holes from it, right across from where I'm sitting, staring at it. Time should be taking its toll on the blue tiles. My eyes are the factor that erode the coating and the stone.

Instead, all I see is my reflection in the polished wall.

Is this some deep statement about the truth of matters between me and Dean? Dean's in trouble, and maybe instead of breaking through and helping him, I'm just focusing on myself. Is that really what's going on here?

I rip my eyes from the reflection and intentionally focus in on my brother.

Partially submerged in the ice water, Dean's whole being is wrestling against the mark in his arm. His writhing moves the water, creating a wavelike effect that washes his hair away from his face, and then a moment later, plasters it back against his forehead. He's shivering, but his temperature is still skyrocketing.

The mark...it's doing something to him. Maybe at some level, it's similar to the physical effect the trials had on me. Draining and traumatizing.

But when I did the trials, I was trying to close down hell. Wanting to rid the world of a whole lot of evil, and save a crapload of souls.

I think in the long run, this isn't going to save anyone or change anything that way. I mean, he is hellbent on killing Abbadon. Sure. What does that do for everyone else though? Is he still just so bent on revenge that he's ready to destroy himself for no better reason?

I remember the souls that I saw...that Agnes was harvesting at Abbadon's command. And I'll be damned if I let that go any further. This is like another form of the apocalypse. It's like brainwashing, but worse.

Here's the thing, though. I don't think that that particular aspect of it makes a difference to Dean. I get the impression that saving those souls is somewhere at the bottom of his list of reasons right now. And that bothers me a lot.

I reach into the water and turn over his arm so I can see the mark. He's been in the water for hours now, and I keep changing out the ice, so why isn't he cooling down? His arms doesn't look any better. It actually looks worse. And now that I think about it, his temperature is higher than it was before.

My heart leaps into my throat.

"Dean, what's going on? Come on, man, I need you to wake up."

I push myself up off the floor and go into the kitchen for more ice.

The machine groans with effort, which only piles onto my concern. It's not going to keep up, not at this rate.

And I'm not about to leave Dean to go to the store for more ice.

I lug the pot back to the bathroom and set it on the floor next to the tub, then start scooping it in, starting near Dean's arm and working my way out.

The ice hits the water, which splashes up against Dean's face.

"Ahh!" he comes flying out of the water, drenching me as he flails his arms, trying to grab something.

I drop the rest of the ice I'm holding into the water and grab his arms.

"Dean, it's me. Calm down. Hey…"

"Obscurum est, et in hominibus, et non vives." Dean screams.

If my heart was in my throat before, it's somewhere on the ceiling now.

"Nam homo occideretur!' he continues, staring right at me.

"Dean!" I'm screaming, too. Trying to pull him out of this. "Dean! Stop!"

"Obscurum est, et in hominibus, et non vives. Nam homo occideretur!" he repeats.

As he continues chanting, I hold him down, ignoring the pain as his fingernails rip into the skin on my forearms and hands. And he's digging deep, almost deep enough to make me let go. The water goes cloudy pink as my blood falls in and distributes itself among the chipped ice.

This isn't him. In our entire lifetime as hunters, he has never tried to learn a single word in Latin that he didn't need. Never took the time to learn meanings or understand context. Just mimicked the syllables, one at a time, that I taught him, until he could speak them from memory.

What he's saying now isn't something I ever taught him.

Something is controlling him.

My brain works through every Latin word I've ever learned, translating, turning it over and over and rearranging the words in my head until the sentences are in English syntax.

Then I know. There's no mistake, I know what Dean is saying.

Now, instead of ignoring the pain in my arms, I focus on it. It distracts me from the message.

The darkness is here. And among men, none shall survive. For they will be killed by man.

I sit and clutch Dean's arms, listening to my blood drip into the water.

It takes me a moment to realize that the only reason I can hear that sound is because Dean has fallen silent.

"Dean?"

His fingernails are still embedded in my arms. There would be a lot less damage if he was better at personal hygiene, but it's been a while since he trimmed them. I'm going to need stitches.

I stare at the torn skin, more disturbed than hurt. It shouldn't be humanly possible for him to do that.

"Dean!"

His eyes are closed again, and compared to the tumultuous shouting moments earlier, he's resting in completely serenity.

Except he's not. His chest heaves, and his mouth has fallen open, like he can't get any air.

I put my hand in front of his mouth and nose. No breath hits my fingers.

"Shit. Come on, Dean. Breathe for me, man."

I pull him up into a sitting position, then all the way out of the tub.

Okay, so my arms hurt now, but I'm not about to let my mind dwell on that.

I slip backwards, the wet floor and the slightly-too long hem of my jeans working together to bring me down. I hear my head crack against the wall, and the air leaves my chest as Dean falls on top of me.

I blink and sit up, pushing Dean onto the floor and arranging him flat on his back.

"Dean!" I check for breath again, but there's nothing. Only silent gasping.

I put my mouth to his and breathe for him.


	4. The Painting

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**No, I'm serious. **

9 years ago, Dean and I worked a case for a woman named Sarah Blake, or as Dean likes to call her, "the magnificent Mrs. Sam Winchester". Even now, he still thinks I should have ended up with Sarah. Even tried to set us up a couple of times.

She was certainly one of the more interesting clients we've had over the years. I mean, not just because she was a great woman. Not just because I had feelings for her.

It's not everyday that we work with an art dealer who's sold a painting haunted by the ghost of a homicidal kid. That case was a tough one. This adopted girl killed off her entire family, and her spirit was still bound to a painted family portrait.

I just remember the surprise on the work men's faces when Sarah told them to burn the painting, and they realized she was being serious. It was a priceless moment.

I had bonded with Sarah, Dean and I killed a ghost, and I left Sarah behind. That's a story for another time. I can't think about Sarah. Not now.

There was one painting from Sarah's show that stood out to me. Not the one with the psycho kid. There was another one that was some sort of street scene, with people and cars and buildings. I can't remember exactly.

I remember all the other paintings looking like photographs, kind of. They had distinct shapes and you could see different images in them. The painting I'm referring to was weird. All the colors blended to the point that you couldn't see distinct shapes. The buildings flowed into the streets, and people melted into the background. The colors flowed together so much that you couldn't tell where one ended and the other began.

The corner of the bathroom wall invites some of my blood to leak out of my head and onto the blue wallpaper. The red blurs into the blue blurs into the brown blurs into the off-white.

The deep crimson, an exact match to the leakage from my arms, is blurred. Just like the painting.

My eyes water as I blink, trying to focus. I can feel the blood rushing around in my head, darting from the back to the front, around, and back again. What's not escaping from my scalp is gasping for air, sending blue, red, pounding flashes to the backs of my eyes.

I can't breathe.

Neither can Dean.

I am breathing for him.

I guess that's why there's no air for me.

How long have I been filling my own lungs, emptying them into Dean's?

His pulse barely tickles my fingertips. It has a sense of rhythm that's even worse than mine. Thud...thud thud….thud…..

Thud.

I can't do it anymore. I can't even see.

I sit up in the darkness. My neck is a limp rope that can't hold my head above my chest. I am gasping desperately for air.

The colors of the room are starting to become like the painting again, confused and muddy. The black, speckled swirling returns, pushing the darkness.

My lungs start to feel more like lungs. My neck stiffens, raising my head slightly.

With every breath I draw, I feel strength dripping back into me. I slowly get to my feet, flailing my arms for balance like a child learning to ride a skateboard. My knees wobble violently, but I manage to stay upright.

The world spins beneath me, and the counter top rises up to support my groping fingers. I let my weight fall against its blessed solidness.

I breathe as deeply as I can for a few more minutes, enough to where I know what's going on around me.

The water that I splash from the tap is frigid against my skin, but it jolts me awake a little bit more.

Time to go in again.

I fall to my knees at Dean's head.

And meet his gaze.

My body jerks backwards, my head coming within inches of striking the bathroom wall again.

Dean continues to stare at me, unblinkingly. His chest moves up and down regularly, as if nothing at all had been impeding his breathing moments earlier.

"Dean?" I pull myself forward. The skin on my palms squelches against the wet floor as I crawl towards my brother, my heart pounding against my ribcage. Squelch. Boom. Squelch. Boom.

"Please...not more Latin, Dean. Can you hear me? Dean!"

His gaze follows me as I move closer and closer.

I can see over the top of his chest to the floor on the other side.

And there it is.

The same phrase again, written in Dean's blood on the floor.

Where is he even bleeding that he was able to do that?

His fingernails make a squelching sound. Like my hands on the bathroom floor. His fingernails, coming out of his arm.

Just like when he scratched me. Deeper, maybe.

"Dean!"

I grab his hands, pulling them away from his arms so he can't do more damage to himself.

That's when I catch sight of my own arms for the first time.

They're so bloody that I didn't notice before. The words.

Carved into my skin.

Obscurum est, et in hominibus, et non vives.

Nam homo occideretur.

I crawl backwards, towards the wall and the sink and solidness. Squelch, thud. Squelch, thud.

Dean's eyes never leave mine.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

"Dean, don't…" I croak. My own voice got stuck somewhere in the pit of my stomach.

"Dean…"

Silence. I can't even make myself say his name again, because that man...that thing, lying on mine and Dean's bathroom floor….it's not Dean. It's not my brother.

I pull my knees into my chest and hide my face in my arms.

"Help me." I mouth into my torn skin. My own blood teases my tongue, metallic and brutal.

"Help me."

I would scream, but I know that would only make the panicking worse.

Time passes at some sort of speed...it feels fast and slow at the same time. It's the tortoise and the hare, chasing each other endlessly around the ticking of the second hand on the clock.

I should open my eyes. See if the Dean-thing is okay, or if it's stopped breathing, or if it's closed Dean's eyes.

I can't make myself.


	5. Impact of a Heartbeat

If Dean was breathing steadily, I would use his breath to mark the passing of time, counting his inhales and exhales like they were seconds.

He doesn't breathe steadily, though. The moment his breath starts to develop any sort of regular rhythm, he begins to writhe, tensing throughout his whole being without warning, like a pregnant woman having contractions.

This curse will give birth to death, if it lives up to its own threats. I think that somehow, somewhere deep down, Dean must have known what he was getting into when he took hold of Cain's arm and let the Knight pass the Mark on to him.

At the same time, I am convinced that he couldn't have known. The Dean I know never would have agreed to this if he knew that it would take over his mind and body. He's the most vocal member of Team Free Will; he is its heartbeat.

Doubt stabs against my thoughts. I don't know my own brother anymore. Maybe he knew the consequences, and was so pressed for vengeance that he went with it anyway.

He screams the threat again, the threat of death that's written on the floor and on my arms.

Blood spills from the words, saturating them; from the ink they are written in to the very meanings of the words themselves.

_Obscurum est, et in hominibus, et non vives. Nam homo occideretur._ The darkness is here. And among men, none shall survive. For they will be killed by man.

It must be a prophecy. Maybe from the Knights of hell. Is it about Abbadon, or worse, is it referring the bearer of the Mark? The prophecy refers to death, and so far, death and destruction seem to be the absolute definition of the Mark. And now the Mark is bound to Dean...

I'm going to lose my brother.

He'll be gone.

My brain quits working.

The room is silent, except for the soft dripping of the bathtub faucet, plunking into the icy water that has now been still for over an hour.

I feel like an empty pipe. Panic, fear, pain, horror...it's all drained away, leaving me hollow. Full of echoes.

Every thought has slid out of my mind and onto the floor with my blood.

And I just stare at him.

His arm.

The hot redness has spread even further from the Mark that pollutes his flesh. It's like his whole arm was dipped in the deepest crimson dye, a dye so dark that it's almost purple. I can barely see the mark itself anymore. The color isn't different enough from the rest of his arm for that.

Steam sizzles and rises around him. The damp bathroom floor renders up its moisture, allowing the heat of Dean's arm to evaporate it. The steam creates a kind of fog around his arm, screening the limb like it's some monster from a horror film.

And it is. The Mark is, anyway.

What do you do to a monster?

In horror movies, people run from the monster. Try to hide from it long enough to save their lives.

Dean and I aren't people in horror movies.

We're hunters.

So what am I going to do with this monster?  
I am frozen at the horror of my own thoughts. Frozen in indecision.

My legs become rods of lead that melt and meld with the tiles of the floor, and I can't move.

I need my big brother to swoop in with his overconfident decisiveness. Make the decision.

Tell me what to do. Do it. And then we hit the road with a couple of beers after that.

But we can't, because we're in our own home, with a monster that I don't know how to kill. And the monster is in my brother.

Also, we might be out of beer.

Even if I figure out how to kill this thing, how to rid it of its existence, I don't know what will happen.

If I can snuff out the evil, will it take Dean with it?

The silence shatters with his wild screams, and I'm on my feet and out of the bathroom before his lifeless eyes catch mine again.

The compass in my head isn't sure which way is up. My vision spins in crazy circles, tearing my gaze from the floor to the ceiling to the wall...I can't tell. It's all blurred together.

My head reminds me that it's been used as a wrecking ball against the bathroom wall, and that that isn't what it's meant for.

I throw my arms out ahead of me, balancing against the door frame to my bedroom, and blessing whatever spirit of Martha Stewart told me to put a waste basket right inside the door. When I'm done retching, I'm slightly less pleased with myself. Because I only sort of hit the can. I step over the rest of the mess and fall to my knees at the foot of my bed. My head bounces on the firm mattress as I allow it to fall, and the movement makes me feel even worse.

I arrange my wounded arms under my pounding head as I choke on more sour bile...most of which I manage to keep down this time.

Dean is still screaming. I rip my arms out from under my head and press my hands against my ears, willing him to stop.

Willing for him to come into my room, a sheepish grin on his face as he tells me it was all a prank. Wipe off the blood on both our arms and show me how it's really just ketchup. Or paint.

He'll peel away the mark on his arm, showing me that it was just a raised sticker that he found. That he found the weird words in Dad's journal, and has no idea what they actually mean. He just threw them together because they sounded scary, and he was bored.

And then I'll be furious with him, and won't speak to him for a week.

After that I'll cool down a little, maybe even someday laugh about it.

Dean will continue to sleep in ridiculously late, and make off-color jokes about my love life, and keep threatening to cut my hair while I'm asleep.

Maybe he'll even do it one day. Give me some hideous military cut.

I wrench my hands away from my ears and find them ringing in the silence.

Truth shouts in the silence, calling for me to stop my stupid wishing, my childish daydreaming, and save my brother.

Dean believes I won't save him, but that's not what I meant.

I won't let his soul be ripped back to life, not after it's gone to rest. I won't do that to him, just so that I can have him back.

But if he's still here, still alive, and there's still a chance of him making it through this, then I'll be damned if I won't fight to the death to keep him that way.

Resolve pulls me to my feet like a puppeteer lifts his puppet by its strings.

I am not losing my brother today. I'm just not.

The chills of doubt hit me again when I wrap my fingers around the demon blade, and images of what I'm about to do rip through my mind with no regard for my sanity.

I can imagine the touch of Dean's flesh under my fingers, and how it will feel to dig the blade into it.

I would rather die.


	6. Sugar, We're Going Down

Obscurum est, et in hominibus, et non vives.

Nam homo occideretur.

I can read the words in my arms clearly now that I've washed the blood away. Some of the letters aren't that deep, and have clotted, but others, like the stalk of the "_b"_, or the downward stroke in the "_n"_, need stitches.

I was wrong before. We aren't out of beer. I swallow down the last of the one in my hand before digging the needle back into my arm. The other arm is done already, stitched up and bandaged. My hands tremble, but not because of the pain. I'm not even going to let my mind think about what I'm about to do.

Right in this moment, I have to take care of myself. Keep myself from bleeding out. I'm already weak from blood loss. It's been three hours since Dean cut me, and some of the wounds are still oozing my life away. I can't afford to lose any more.

Especially with what I have to do.

"_N...a...m…."_the stitches on my arm spell the words with meticulous precision over the wounds that have already screamed the message at me every time I look down.

And suddenly, I can't. I don't care that the word "_homo_" is still leaking blood. I have to do this now, or I won't do it at all.

I leave the med kit on the table and head past the bathroom. It's empty now. Its patient has been moved to other quarters. Where I can restrain the monster.

Down the stairs, past the garage and past Dean's bedroom.

Maybe, Dean will sleep in there tonight. Peacefully.

Not in the garage, in the bedroom. Although I would never put it past him to sleep in the garage with Baby.

He'll be back up and driving you again in no time, girl. I promise. I'm going to fix him.

I spend forever standing in front of the dungeon door, as if delaying my action will make me cease to exist, or make the deed I have to do cease to be necessary.

Behind the door is a monster.

I close my eyes, reach out and turn the handle, force myself into the room, and shut the door behind me. I take exactly four steps forward. And I keep my eyes shut.

I can hear Dean panting, breathing shallowly and thickly. I focus in on the sound, giving myself some sort of pep talk. It's an ultimatum. Cut the Mark out of him or don't. Save his soul or don't.

I take in a mouthful of the stagnant air of the dungeon, letting the smell stick to the roof of my mouth. The thousands of victories that must have been won in this room by the Men of Letters stirs up the life in my veins. Makes me proud of who we are. Evil has lost in this room more times than can be counted.

And evil will continue to lose.

I can see Dean without opening my eyes. I know exactly where I set him, in the chair in the middle of the room, his hands and feet secured to his seat. I wrapped an ice pack around his arm and taped it in place, but in the ten minutes that I left him to tend to my wounds, it has probably melted. Might have even turned into steam.

I reach around to the back of my belt and wrap my fingers around my weapon.

Everything inside me dies as I let my grip on the handle tighten. I can't do this.

"Sammy?"

It can't be. My teeth almost meet together through my lip, I'm biting so hard.

I open my eyes and become Sammy again. Some snot-nosed kid who is totally lost without his big brother.

"Dean!" I don't walk or run to him...it's more like falling.

To say that he looks like hell is putting it lightly. I can't make myself look at the pain that has driven its claws into his eyes, into the lines around his mouth. His fingers scrabble to undo his binds and get to the mark on his arm. To tear at it? To comfort it?

"Dean, don't." I clamp my hands over the chains around his wrists.

He groans, gasping for air, as he raises his gaze to me.

"Get away!" he pants. "Get back!"

I keep holding on to his arms, shifting my balance so that my feet are spread apart. "No."

"I'm not asking, Sammy." his voice is low, but not threatening. It's authoritative. But I'm not going anywhere.

When he realizes this, he sets his jaw, that cold fire that has kept us alive most of our lives lighting brightly in his eyes.

"Sammy, you have to cut it out of me, man." he commands.

"I…" I take a deep breath. "I know."

I pull the demon knife out of my belt and show it to him.

"Dean...I…"

"Don't think about it, Sammy. Just do it."

The knife is fighting to free itself from my grasp. All I want to do is drop it at my feet.

Dean throws his head back, slamming it into the chair. His whole body goes tense.

"Dean!"

"Obscurum est, et in hominibus…"

"No!" I shout. "Not again!"

Without another moment of hesitation, I clasp my hand around Dean's arm, right between his wrist and the mark, and drive the blade point first into his skin.


	7. Kelly Clarkson is a Poltergeist

Let me tell you about the mark. I don't think I really understood it before, but I am understanding it now that I am inches deep into it with both hands.

It looked thick. Tough and hard, like a blister that has started to heal over. Kind of calloused.

I quickly discovered that it's almost the exact opposite.

So get this. The top of it, its outer layer, is barely more than a membrane. A little bit like the fragile insides of an egg, right beneath the shell. Impossibly thin.

As soon as I sever it, I wish that I hadn't. The Mark kills me as I pierce into it, releasing a wave of some dark power that catches me off guard. The unusual amount of blood pooling beneath the membrane is not the only thing that comes pouring out, boiling hot.

When I cut into it, it releases the curse.

The next thing I know is the jolt of my teeth colliding with each other as I hit the ground. Voices in hundreds of different languages hurl themselves at me, speaking words which I'm sure can only be the curse. I curl my arms around my head in an attempt to block them out, but it does no good. The voices have penetrated the inside of my head, trying to rip my mind apart. I recognize Spanish, French, and maybe a couple other languages in the chaos. It's hard to distinguish, but I even hear something that might be Enochian.

I press my forehead into Dean's shoes, keeping my head covered.

After forever, I can't hear them anymore, and some impossible force makes me get to my feet and go at Dean's arm again.

It's all I can do to keep my hands steady as I prepare the knife to dig into his arm again. The only thing in the world I want is to be able to separate myself emotionally from what I am doing. Impossible.

The one round of cutting has stolen too much of Dean's blood and donated it to the floor and his lap. Can't focus on that. Have to keep going. I force my mind away from the blood. And the voices.

Dean's gaze stabs into even deeper into me than the knife in his flesh. Sweat leaks out of his head, bouncing further down his face with every shuddering breath he sucks in.

"You okay Sammy?"

"Did...did you hear the voices too?" I whisper.

"Yes." the word is short, abrupt.

"Okay."

I raise the knife to start again.

"Sam…"

I bite my lip. "Dean, I have to do this."

"I know, trust me I know, okay? It's okay. It's okay." He moans. "But man, I need you to untie my hand."  
I stare at him.

"Why?"

"Not that one." he jerks his head at the Mark. "The other one. Sam, please."

My hunter's instinct crouches suspiciously, and I study Dean's face for signs that this is actually him talking and not some freaky curse.

The Mark undoubtedly has made him strong enough to overpower me if I let him loose while it's in control of him. I don't want to risk that.

But at the same time, this is my brother.

"Bro, please. I...I can't do this unless you untie my hand." his eyes bore into me, unrelenting and desperate.

Slowly, I recognize the look in his eyes. I should; I've seen it enough times over the course of our lives. And suddenly, I know why he needs his hand free, and I'm willing to take the risk.

Before I can hesitate any longer, I yank the cuff key out of my pocket and undo the chains that bind his left hand to the chair arm. I tense as he brings his hand up, ready for him to hit me. He pauses, his open palm hovering above my forearm.

He looks at me, his palm staying open and upward. Gives me time to believe that he's not going to hurt me.

Then he grips my arm, gently at first, then more firmly. His eyelids slip down and he nods, exhaling heavily.

It's the same way he holds onto me every single time that I stitch him up, or dig a bullet out of him. He's simultaneously reassuring me and steadying himself.

"Okay. I'm ready now." he says so quietly that I almost can't make out the words.

This time, he screams. It's an awful scream, worse than almost anything I've ever heard coming from my big brother before. His fingers squeeze my forearm tightly, his sweaty hand slipping around over the top of my sleeve.

I stop, giving him time to catch his breath, but he seizes my arm tighter, pulling me closer to him.

"Don't...stop." He grinds out, shaking me with each word. "Don't you dare stop...no matter what. This has to end." he lets his head fall against his chest. "It's killing me, Sammy. Don't let it kill me."

His words are all the prompting I need. I'm going to save his life.

The memories of his death are still vivid to me, even though it was a few years ago. I remember how he screamed when the hellhounds dragged him to the ground and ripped him to shreds, while Lilith laughed. I wish I could forget. It's stained into me mind's eye, never leaving me alone for very long.

This, this sound is almost worse. I didn't believe that anything would ever be worse, but I am being proven more and more wrong by every second and every tormented cry.

He's trying so hard not to scream. Trying to pretend that I'm not inflicting agony on him.

I keep hearing that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I know, I know. There's a song about that that's so worn out that even Dean, who's out of touch with pop culture, knows that it's overdone.

In a twisted way, the opening line of the song has become a sort of life motto for Dean and myself. As much as we hate it, we have seen time and time again that our strength is increased by the things that bring us to the brink of death before pulling us back. Even things that killed us, and then brought us back later made us stronger.

I'm just going to be honest here. I am so sick of getting stronger. I don't need more endurance, more power. If I could have it redone, start from the beginning again, I would throw out the strength and trade it for the people that we lost. I would erase the pain in our lives. The times when we had to leave people behind, or when we couldn't rest. The times that we hurt each other. I would erase all of it.

Maybe….maybe what we think of as "strength" isn't really that. My strength is making me less strong. Dean might disagree with me, but there was a vitality, a steadiness, that I found in Jessica, in Bobby, and in Kevin. When those people died, that strength died with them.

I have suspected for a while now that Dean and I have become part of a process that gives you "strength" and robs you of humanity in equal portions.

Now, as I drive a knife into my own brother, over and over, getting nowhere, the words to the song taunt my thoughts and every move I make.

I keep working at Dean's arm, going deeper and deeper. I don't know what will happen if I give up, so I keep attacking it. Beneath the now-severed membrane, and the overflow of blood, there is something thicker and harder to cut into. If I didn't know any better, I would think it was muscle.

It's not, though. It's tougher, and it's darker than the night sky after a snowstorm, almost pure black.

Dean's blood is dripping off the chair. Off the knife. Off of my fingertips.

His screams rip through me. I almost would rather have him screaming than chanting Latin curses at me. Despite the warring desire to stop, to make his pain stop, I am selfishly comforted by the reassurance that this is my brother. The monster lies dormant.

I am here with my big brother.

Funny how that's better and worse at the same time.


	8. Bottle It Up

Dean shouts sharply as I remove another wad of blood-soaked cloth from his arm.

"Sorry." I change out the grotesque reddened ball of fabric, exchanging it for a fresh one.

Dean holds a jar in his left hand, his arm extended as far out from the rest of the body as possible. The glass container slowly drifts back towards his face as he studies its contents, but he doesn't let it get very close before he holds it away again.

"I don't even know how to patch this up, Dean." I grit my teeth. The pressure I'm putting on Dean's wound is needling at my own injuries. "I mean, I went all the way down to the bone."

His eyes drift aimlessly across his arm, his line of vision dips into the pit of missing flesh, and then back up again. His eyebrows bob uncertainly, as if he's not quite able to take in what he's seeing.

"We should burn it." I observe, staring at the mark. It's in the jar now, in bits and pieces. There must be at least a pound of it. I shudder. The blackness of it stubbornly refuses to reflect the light of the lamp that sits on the table.

"I second that." he nods. He hands the jar back to me and I set it on the tabletop, as far away as I can. It horrifies me.

"Okay, moment of truth." Dean sighs wearily.

I catch sight of his face out of the corner of my eye as I dig through the heap of bloody rags on the table.

"You okay?"

"I guess we're about to find out." he says, shifting his weight in his seat, wincing as the movement jostles his arm.

My conscience screams accusations at me as I look at the gaping hole in his flesh, still slick with blood.

I have to reassure myself that it's gone...after digging all the way down to the bone to scrape the black disease from Dean's arm, I am convinced. The Mark has been eradicated.

But I hurt him. Again. I hurt him, I destroyed his arm…

"You feel guilty, don't you?" his words slur heavily, the syllables dipping in and out, up and down, like the hole in his arm.

I ignore his question, continuing to move the mess on the table around. Where is it…I know I had it here somewhere…

"Wow. You do!" Dean sits back, and I can feel his gaze piercing the back of my head. "I didn't think you could feel anything for me anymore besides...oh, I don't know. Complete indifference."

And there it flask. I grab it, sliding it out from under the spilled contents of the med kit. We need to make this fast. If I don't get him stitched up soon, he'll bleed out.

"You know what Dean? Don't. Just don't. After the last six hours...really? You're going to play this card again? I just saved your life. Did you want me to leave you possessed? Is that you wanted? Because listen to me. I never would have done that."

He opens his mouth to speak again, but I cut him off. "I can't believe that you still think that. That I don't care about you, or that I don't want to save you. How can you not see what's right in front of your face?"

I let those words hang in the air. Without further ceremony or hesitation, I press his arm to the table and pour a generous amount of holy water into the wound.

He rises halfway out of his seat, bellowing and trying to free his arm from my grip. Despite the pain it's obviously causing him, there's no sign of any lingering pollution in the wound. The water pours into the hole in his arm without steaming or smoking.

I let go of him and turn around, letting his angry curses bounce off of my back without reaction. My physical stance betrays my true thoughts, though. Because now I know that I have the words to express everything that I've wanted to say for the past two years. My actions since the moment Dean and Cas disappeared to Purgatory to this moment have all become abundantly clear.

Dean grunts slightly behind me before falling silent, holding another towel against his raw, wet flesh.

"What do you mean, I'm not seeing what's in front of my face?"  
"Just forget it, okay?"

"Sam..." his tone almost softens. "I deserve an answer."

"Do you?" I bite back, without turning around.

"Look. I really want to hear what you're thinking. I'm too gone from blood loss to be trying to fight. If you have some reason that makes sense, I want to know."

I turn to face him, arranging the sutures on the table

"But," he adds. Of course, there's a 'but'. "for everything you've said, and everything you've done...and haven't done...I don't know, Sam. It had better be a really, really good answer."

"Do you want me to stitch you up or not, Dean?" I sigh.

He looks at me for a moment, his jaw working as he considers how to answer that.

"Okay, Sam."

He sits silently for me until I've finished patching him up. Several times, as I reach for a fresh bandage or get him a drink of water, I catch his eyes gliding across my bandaged arms. He doesn't say anything, though.

I give him something for the pain, make sure he's hydrated, and help him into the bedroom.

He says my name again as I'm leaving the room, and I turn around, bracing myself for more questions or accusations. Maybe both.

"I'm sorry...about what I did to your arms." the apology comes gruffly, hesitantly, but I can hear more meaning than the words he actually says.

"I'm okay." I nod, then I leave.

Part of me dares to hope that he's softening to the idea that I have genuine reasons for what I did.

I want to explain to him. I know the words. I just can't let myself go there. The state my mind was in...I can't ever let myself near that time in my memory again. It will kill me.

How do I explain to him that hitting a dog isn't an excuse, but rather the event that saved my life?


	9. The Rise and Fall of the Batman

**Hi guys! Thanks for sticking with me through this story. I was planning on finishing it up by the Season 9 finale, but unfortunately couldn't pull it off. I hope you all still enjoy this story as it comes to a close! You have been amazing.**

**Leave a review and favorite my work at the sound of the beep.**

I'm not even going to start going into all the reasons that I have an, um, _issue, _with clowns. It's a really long list, and trust me, you don't want to hear most of it.

I think the fear developed with this one particular event that occurred when I was three or four years old. It's something that I know I will never talk about.

Dean was mortified when he found out what had happened. Purely mortified. I think over the years part of him forgot about it, just to have one less thing to feel guilty about.

Once, when I came screaming to "Bean" in the middle of the night, nightmares of the ghoulish, brightly painted faces bombarding my mind, he'd pulled me up next to him on his bed. After he'd finished tucking his big green quilt around me, he got me as close to him as he possibly could and began talking softly, his voice gentle and reassuring.

"Sammy," he'd said, "remember the comic books? The Batman ones?"

I had remembered, of course.

"And you know how Batman fights the Joker and wins? And the Joker is a clown, too?"

I'd swallowed and nodded.

"Sammy, I'm going to tell you a secret." Dean had said.

I had leaned in hungerly as he cupped his hands over his mouth.

"I'm Batman." he'd whispered.

"No you're not, Bean."

"Oh yes I am! If you don't believe it, look!"

He reached under his bed and pulled out a black, molded plastic mask.

"Batman's mask!" I shouted.

"Shh...don't want to wake up dad." he cautioned, glancing over his shoulder at the impending doom of the darkened hall, just beyond the open door.

I lowered my voice. "Dean, where did you get that?"

He grinned. "I told you. I'm Batman."

Not that Dean hadn't been my hero from the very beginning, but in that particular moment, he ascended to a new level of perfection in my eyes.

Thirty years later, the man at my side is a far cry from the Batman figure of my fantastical childhood imagination.

When Dean's lost a lot of blood, he morphs into a kind of cross between a toddler who's just gaining full control of his motor skills and a wasted teen. There's a similarity in the movements, I guess. So as we sink onto my bed in the bunker, I'm not really sure who's holding up who.

My hero is no longer my hero, but I know that it goes both ways. I've fallen in his eyes, too.

I hit a dog. I didn't look for my brother in his hour of greatest need, because I met a girl. She and I hooked up in a motel room for a year, and I had cake and barbeques and beers and lived the sweet life with my woman and my dog. That's the story he would tell, anyway.

As I watch Dean trying to get his hands to stop shaking enough to stitch me up, I realize that his opinion of my actions during his Purgatory trip is justified, simply because I never made the effort to give him a better explanation.

If I had given Dean a full explanation, it would have broken down the meager walls of sanity that I'd erected during his time in Purgatory. Beyond that, though, I don't believe he deserves a better explanation.

Dean and I have hurt each other a lot over the years. We could both drone on and on about it. The lies, the deception, the misunderstandings and even betrayals. To do so would break the age-old Dean Winchester commandment: no chickflick moments. So instead, we suck it up, stow our feelings, and do our freaking jobs. It's better that way. And no matter what we've done to each other, we've always pulled through.

I stare at him, hunched over on my bed as he focuses all of his earnest attention on patching me up, like somehow sewing up the jagged cuts in my arms will mend our relationship, too.

The cold, biting alcohol wipe slides across the damaged skin on my arms. It's a feeling. Even if I'm tough, I'm not going to lie and say that it's a pleasant feeling, or that I welcome it. I've never had acid poured onto my skin, but the alcohol in an open wound is agonizing enough to make me wonder if there's any similarity between the two sensations.

The physical pain is all it takes for me to remember why the rules about non-physical feelings are there in the first place.

I've never had a mountain to climb like this before. I don't know if this is something that I _can_ get over.

What Dean and I do. It's called a defense mechanism. It sounds like a such a clean, in-the-box, textbook-on-the-shelf term.

If you search Wikipedia for "defense mechanism", it will get into a lengthy description and a history of Sigmund Freud before telling you that "Defense mechanisms may result in healthy or unhealthy consequences depending on the circumstances and frequency the mechanism is used."

Understatement.

I have all these theories about Dean and I's communication habits and our emotional stability. Similar to our strength, I believe that our defense mechanisms have begun to backfire.

But then, when I start thinking about those theories, irony of all ironies...my defense mechanisms kick in, and I laugh it off. Or I think about something else. I have to leave it behind.

No chickflick moments.

Because we know how easily, how fast, we could end up like Martin, an older hunter friend of ours who's since...bit it.

Or, I guess he was bitten.

Martin lost his sanity towards the end of his hunting career. Completely lost it. Couldn't handle reality anymore. We visited him once and found him jumping at shadows, so hopelessly lost in the pain and loss of his life that he could barely acknowledge the passing of time.

I'm jolted out of my reverie by a sudden stabbing sensation. I shout in surprise, and Dean hisses apologetically, putting down the needle for a moment and shaking his hands out, trying to get them to obey his commands.

The pure white coat of bandages resembles the flag of Japan, featuring a blatantly red circle at the center. He's struggling a little for air as well, a side effect of the blood loss.

"Dean." I say gently. "I've got this. Why don't you go get some rest?"

"Sam…"

"I can do it. I mean, you just stabbed me, so I can probably do it better than you can at this point."

He opens his mouth to argue, then changes his mind, rubbing the back of his hand wearily over his eyes.

"Thanks." he says roughly.

He moans and sways as he gets to his feet, and my heart does a little flip. He's got me worried.

I reach out my hand to steady him, but he avoids my touch and disappears back down the hall towards his own room.

Chickflick moment rule aside, there's something boiling in me that I have to get out. Poisoning me like the Mark was poisoning Dean. I lean across the bed and grab a few sheets of paper and a pen.

I don't think we're really better than anyone else. Sometimes, I don't think we're braver, or stronger. Dean is convinced that we're some sort of rogue X-men. I disagree. I think we just have better defense mechanisms than the average human.

But if we let everything in, let everything hit us…

I think we'd be even worse off than Martin was towards the end.

After I finish mending my arms and writing on the paper, I get to my feet, the wicker chair in my room creaking wearily as it is freed of my weight.

I have to admit, there are times when I myself am surprised by the altitude I reach when I'm standing. I seem to have a tendency to become keenly more aware of my own height when I have a head injury. Maybe something to do with dizziness.

I don't know.

My feet find a crooked path across my bedroom, each step jerky and unconfident. I toss the alcohol wipes, the bloody bandages, and the five page letter I wrote to Dean into the trash can.


	10. (Side Note)

**Hello gorgeous readers,**

**Surprise! This is less of a chapter and more of a note directly to you. Don't worry, the story's not over yet.**

**Okay?  
Breathe.**

**Sheesh.**

**Please go check out my companion piece to this story, "The Letter". **

**After writing Chapter 9, I really wanted to further express what's been going on in Sam's mind in Season 9 in a more honest, raw way than we've seen, so I decided to actually write the letter that Sam throws away at the end of the chapter. **

**I have noticed a lot of people angry with Sam's behavior and choices in Season 9, and while he's not perfect, I don't think that those assumptions are fair. So I've gone into detail of why he did what he did. From his point of view, of course.**

**Hope you enjoy it.**

**Chapter 10 is going to be so exciting, I think. I'm pulling the story in a direction that will make it a possible canon with the season finale.**

**Yup.**

**You guys are great. See you for Chapter 10. **


	11. Synonyms of Fire

_The darkness is here. And among men, none shall survive. For they will be killed by man. _

The words of the curse saturate my mind as Dean stands before me, holding his arm in front of him, biting his lip and shifting from one foot to the other. He looks like a lost child.

The picture will be complete if he starts to cry. Maybe he will.

He keeps opening his mouth and then closing it again, trying to create words over and over, but failing.

Dean needs me.

His hair is as wildly lost as the look in his eyes, the locks matting and clumping and standing on end around his head, his absentminded brushing with his fingers only making it more wild.

And this is how I found him this morning. I opened my bedroom door, and he was just...there.

Finally, he speaks, but the sight of him has shocked me so much that I barely register the words.  
"Uh...what?" I ask when I finally realize that he said something.

He shifts his weight again, swaying, as if his arm is throwing him off balance. "I...didn't want to wake you up." the words are monotone, meaningless.

The Mark is intact again, full and bright and almost humming, as if hadn't been violently ripped from Dean's flesh only hours earlier.

"Dean…" I breathe.

He says nothing as he stares in horror at the Mark.

"I…" he takes a deep breath, the sound vibrating nervously as it escapes his lips.

"Are you in any pain?" I press. "Do you...feel it?"  
He shakes his head slowly. "It's fine. We'll just cut it out again?"

The color in his cheeks is back, and he's firmly on his feet. Just like the Mark, his physique bears no memory to the trauma of the night before.

"And what? Watch it come back _again_?" I demand.

"I don't know." he says. He meets my gaze so suddenly and fiercely that it startles me. "But hell if I'm going to let it take control of my melon again."

"It won't." I say, reaching out my hand to touch his arm, but reconsidering at the look on his face. "We'll figure something out."

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

We don't figure "something else" out. For days, I pour holy water over the Mark, but it doesn't react. Dean doesn't have any more bouts of insanity, but I can see it in his eyes. Every day. A darkness descending, and a desire for the blade that seems to grow deeper and stronger, while the man I know as my brother slips further and further from my grasp.

The Mark is like a really messed up magnet for the compass of Dean's morality, and that's what should be concerning me right now. It's not.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

We take a case, finally. It's a werewolf pack that's wreaking havoc on a campsite less than forty miles from the bunker. So we take it. I kind of force it on Dean, actually. Trying to create something normal for him to hang on to. And something to distract me.

He's carrying himself differently. He's always walked like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. He's worn a disguise, tinting the despair with jokes and a carefree attitude that I could always see right through. Right through, down to the self hatred and hopelessness.

The trunk is loaded with everything we should need for the hunt, and we should be set to go, but I scan the contents carefully one last time before breathing a sigh of relief.

Even though the Blade is lost, something in the back of my head keeps nagging at me; a lingering suspicion that Dean is just hiding it from me. Or something.

I shut the trunk of the Impala and climb in next to him, barely daring to look at him. He sits stiff and upright, anger quivering at his lips. I haven't even done anything.

"Dean…" I begin questioningly.

"Let's just do this, Sam." he says.

And I swear, he wasn't this mad at me when he got in the car ten seconds ago.

There's no reason for it.

I sigh and shut myself in, letting him stew in silence.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

Whether I've wanted it or not, Dean's first priority has always been me. As long as I can remember, I've known that nothing can destroy my brother's devotion to me. Even during the darkest times in our lives, I never doubted that Dean would do anything, and I mean _anything_ to keep me safe. I knew when he was disappointed in me, but I knew for a fact that my brother would never, ever let anything happen to me. Maybe in some ways, it's been part of my identity. Or a security blanket. Or both.

I groan in disgust as I lift the werewolf's heavy heart from its chest and toss it into the fire. The hunt went easily, and both of us escaped with nothing more than a few scratches. Our prey was not so lucky.

There's someone behind me. I tense, my fingers flying towards my hip as I spin, ready to draw and fire on my attacker. But Dean's faster than me. He seizes my arm, wrenching it around until it's pinned behind my back, and kicks my feet out from under me. With no way to break my fall, my full weight lands on my shoulder, and I hear the pop as it comes dislocated.

"What the hell, Dean?" I gasp.

"Did you do this on purpose?" he shouts, pressing his knee into the small of my back and twisting my arm again.

The pain ricochets through my shoulder and finds its way to my lungs and vocal chords, then releases.

"Do _what_?"

"That was Crowley." he flashes his phone across my line of vision, the light from the screen stabbing into my mind.

"Yeah, so?"

"You…" his voice trembles. "Brought me here."

"Dean." I moan as my shoulder grinds and tears in Dean's grip. "What're you talking about?"

"He found the Blade. Left me a message. But did I get the message? No! Because you…" he throws his weight against my injury with each word. "Dragged. Me. Here!"

He lets go, rising above me, ironically silhouetted against the fire that I've been burning the werewolves hearts in.

He turns to leave, and I begin to curl in on myself, protecting my injured arm between my legs and chest.

Suddenly, he turns around and kicks me full force in the ribs.

"Stay down, Sam." he growls.

And then he's gone.

This is it. This is what I feared the most.

Not the lack of moral standards, or the undefinable darkness, but this.

He's not my Batman anymore.


	12. Surely Heaven Waits for You

**WARNING: This final chapter is more of a reflective, fill in the blanks for the end of season 9. So obviously, SPOILER ALERT.**

**Thanks so much for reading this story, I appreciate it! Please swing over to my profile and check out my other stories, especially my new one, "Warning Signs". It explores the idea of John Winchester's abusive parenting from a fairly AU perspective.**

Everytime we encounter a hellhound, I run a little bit faster, I think. It's kind of like some weird law of science. I fall to my knees at the grave next to Dean, who's already eagerly slicing into the body where Crowley hid the blade.

"I'll do it Dean." I tell him. The last thing on earth I want is for him to touch that blade. Even if it means me reaching my arm into a fresh corpse.

"It's fine." he said.

It's fine?

Still panting from our close call with Crowley's mutt, I stare at him, wanting desperately to believe him. But I just can't. I can't believe that if he wraps his hand around this abomination in the shape of a donkey jawbone, he's going to be "fine". My still throbbing shoulder and cracked ribs from our scuffle two days ago are testament to exactly how not-"fine" he is.

I glance at his face again and catch sight of it, just for a moment. The greed, the hunger. He _wants_ to touch the Blade. Needs it. Gosh, he's almost drooling.

I turn my back to him.

I can feel Dean's eyes burning into the back of my head, but I can't make myself do it. The words really just came out of my mouth. I'm gonna do this. I'm going to reach inside of this reeking, rotting corpse and pull the First Blade out.

And I'm going to let Dean kill Abbadon with it. Let him use the thing that's taking him away from me.

Is this how Dean felt while I was doing the trials? To some extent, it must have been. I'm letting my brother commit to this, knowing that there's a possibility that the consequences might outweigh the benefit of the action. There's absolutely no choice. Especially with the way Dean is behaving, I know that I can't change his mind. He has to do this. I know that.

Abbadon has to go.

I reach into the body and pull the knife out.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

He's still trembling when we get into the car. He won't let me drive.

"Dean."

He's completely unresponsive. It's like he's not even in the car with me.

His hand's still shaking. Just like it did when he finally dropped the Blade over an hour ago after pulling it from Abbadon's chest. I can still see some of her blood in between his fingers, so of course that sends my memory warp speeding back to the image of the look on his face, and the ferocity with which he was beating her already dead body.

Dean does things for reasons. He always has. As I watched him trying to beat the life out of Abbadon's already lifeless corpse, I recognized the flame of insanity that drove him to beat me for making him miss Crowley's call. Not senseless, necessarily. Overkill.

He's lost control. All the pent-up rage blasted from his body with tsunamical force as he butchered Abbadon's vessel. He crushed her, battering her and neck until she was completely disfigured. And he hadn't stopped.

He'd taken pleasure in what he'd done to her. Enjoyed it.

I let my finger slip slowly over my throat. I can still feel my scream there, screaming for Dean to stop. He wouldn't have stopped.

And the look in his eyes when he finally stopped hitting her….that wasn't my brother.

Dean is gone. Or almost gone.

And he lied to me. Tricked me. Crowley warned him about Abbadon, and he left me in the dark.

And….

The steering wheel jerks in response as his muscles re-live what he's just done, and I come back to the present. One of us has to make sure the Impala stays on the road.

"Dean!" I yell. He's going to get us killed.

He finally comes around, and we ride in silence for a few minutes.

And then he starts talking. His oozing words fill me with dread as he describes in detail how the Blade makes him feel.

And it's different.

I've seen him hungry, and lustful, and lonely, in each incident consumed by desire. This is stronger. Darker. All the things I desperately don't want it to be.

And so I confront him. Get up the courage to suggest that we lock the blade away.

And he says no.

SPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPNSPN

I finish the incantation robotically and brush the herbs and ashes off of my hands.

When I stand up, I get the too-tall concussion feeling again. Time has taken a respectful moment of silence for my brother's death, allowing me to wander and grieve outside of its confines. It's like a space that has separated itself from the rest of life, the rest of existence, just so that I can mourn Dean.

I don't want it though. I don't want this space. I want my brother.

I will not make a deal with Crowley. He hasn't earned a deal. I will tied him down and torture him if I have to. Slowly, and carefully. I will beat him to a pulp. Less slowly and less carefully.

But he _will_ bring my brother back.

There's a thump upstairs, and before I'm aware of my own body, I've gone upstairs and down the hall to Dean's room, where I left his body on his bed.

Crowley shoulders past me as I enter, his face blank.

And there he is. His back is turned to me as he buttons up a clean shirt, the blood soaked one his corpse was wearing earlier crumpled on the bed.

The relief that washes over me at the sight of him almost knocks me over. Something about dying kind of erases every and any difference or conflict between us from my mind, and he's instantly forgiven for everything. The stunt with Gadreel, Kevin…

I close the distance between us with a couple of steps and seize his shoulders to turn him around.

As I gaze into his eyes, two thoughts ring out clearly above the screams, sirens, and paradoxical silence that takes over my mind.

The darkness is here. And among men, none shall survive. For they will be killed by man.

I should have cut the Mark out when I had the chance. 


End file.
